CSP Council

The CSP Council provides leadership for the physiotherapy profession. It identifies and agrees CSP policy and strategy and is responsible for the governance of the organisation.

Council's strategic roles and responsibilities

What is CSP Council responsible for?

Council is made up of 12 elected members to lead and represent CSP members wherever they live and work. Council members are collectively responsible for:

setting strategy and policy and to ensure that they are delivered;
providing a collective voice for the profession and acting in the best interests of the profession as a whole;
listening to and connecting with members to understand frontline issues;
understanding how the CSP works;
following and upholding the provisions of the Royal Charter;
ensuring that CSP finance and resources are well used and accounted for to ensure the Society’s long-term sustainability;
working with council’s committees, projects, boards, networks and other groups;
appointing the chief executive and holding them to account;
representing council’s views and policies to different audiences;
approving the appointment of the employee nominated pension trustees;
approving appointments to council committees;
ensuring that the work of its committees is strategic, co-ordinated and productive;
maintaining high standards of governance and the society’s reputation;
being accountable to the CSP membership for council decisions and actions, being held to account at the Annual General Meeting and to be accountable to members at the Annual Representative Conference; and
other activities as agreed by Council.

Members of CSP Council

Council comprises of up of 12 members and includes the chair and vice-chair. Our Patron is His Majesty, The King (see our Royal Charter). The CSP President is Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and the Vice-President is Alex MacKenzie.

Ms Leanne Antoine
(email antoinel@csp.org.uk)
Mr Ishmael Beckford (Chair)
(email beckfordi@csp.org.uk)
Ms Gemma Scott
(email scottg@csp.org.uk)
Ms Reshma Patel
(email patelr1@csp.org.uk)
Ms Alexandra Spearritt (Vice-chair)
(email spearritta@csp.org.uk)

Mr Jack Chew
(email chewj@csp.org.uk)
Ms Gillian Rawlinson
(email grawlinson@csp.org.uk)
Mr Sri Sabapathy
(email sabapathys@csp.org.uk)
Ms Kelly Walker
(email walkerk@csp.org.uk)
Ms Sylvia Wojciechowski
(email wojciechowskis@csp.org.uk)

Leanne Antoine

Leanne is the director of Distinct Physiotherapy, an independent musculoskeletal (MSK) service based in Hertfordshire. She started her career in the NHS as a physiotherapy assistant moving on to complete a physiotherapy degree and eventually an MSc in neuromusculoskeletal advanced physiotherapy. Leanne’s personal and professional interests are matters related to health and wellness, and equity, diversity and belonging, and she can be found publicly speaking about them in various environments. She is also a spokesperson for the CSP and has made several public-facing invaluable contributions to this role.

Chair

Ishmael Beckford

Ishmael is a director at Vita Health Group, an independent provider of physical and mental health services. His clinical background is MSK, primarily within private practice and occupational health. Ishmael has undertaken leadership roles including as a clinical manager and operations lead and has worked away from physiotherapy as a service lead in an Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) service. Ishmael’s professional interests include clinical operations, equity, diversity and belonging, and sustainability. Ishmael is an active member of the CSP’s Black, Asian and minority ethnic network, and support students as a Kingston University London Beyond Barriers mentor.

Jack Chew

Jack is a new Council member, elected in 2022. He took up his role at the November 2022 AGM.

Reshma Patel

Reshma is a clinical business unit manager, managing specialist services in the community. She has extensive experience in MSK management both in the NHS and private sector. She has a keen interest in leadership and management and is keen to develop leadership skills from the outset. Reshma graduated from Essex University in 2008 and completed her MSc in advanced neuromusculoskeletal physiotherapy at King's College London in 2012. She is currently undergoing her MBA training at the University of Hertfordshire.

Gillian Rawlinson

Gill is a new Council member elected in 2022. She took up her role at the November 2022 AGM.

Council member Sri Sabapathy — Sri Sabapathy

Srikesavan Sabapathy

Sri graduated with a BPT in 1998 and an MPT in 2006 from India and gained experience in roles that involved academic teaching and administration, and research and clinical work. In 2009, he moved to Canada where he completed an MSc in medical rehabilitation and worked as a physiotherapist. He moved to the UK in 2015 and worked as a major trauma inpatient physiotherapist at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Sri has since moved into commissioning and is currently the clinical lead therapist at NHS Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board. He served on the CSP professional committee in 2021 before being elected to the Council in 2022. Sri is an active member of the CSP BAME Network, with a special interest around work involving internationally trained physiotherapists. He is an elected governor (public) of Oxford Health NHS Foundation trust and volunteers on the staff experience group.

Gemma Scott

Gemma proudly started her physio career journey in 2008 as a rehabilitation assistant in a community setting, where she met inspirational physiotherapists and other support workers who encouraged her to apply for an undergraduate degree in physiotherapy. Since qualifying in 2012, she has worked at busy NHS hospitals, small community health centres, GP surgeries and for private and commercial enterprises as a specialist physiotherapist in occupational health. Gemma volunteered as a CSP health and safety rep and was elected to Council in 2021.

Vice-chair

Alexandra Spearritt

Alex is the deputy divisional director of allied health professions at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Trust. She has worked in the NHS and private sector, across adult, paediatric, inpatient, outpatient and community settings as a clinician, in managerial roles and more recently in her professional leadership role. Alex is an active member of the CSP having been a CSP health and safety rep, workplace steward, and regional steward. She has a keen interest in trade unionism and is passionate about equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging and allied health profession (AHP) leadership development in healthcare.

Dr Kelly Walker

Kelly is an associate professor in physiotherapy at the University of East Anglia (UEA), since 2005. She qualified as a physiotherapist in 1997 from the University of Hertfordshire and worked clinically in Cambridge and Staffordshire specialising in neurology and stroke rehabilitation. Kelly has been a CSP member for 29 years – as a student, clinician, CSP steward, lecturer, CSP education representative, and physiotherapy course director. This has provided her with great insight and the opportunity to focus on the physiotherapist of the future in an evolving health and social care context.

Kelly obtained her master’s in neurological physiotherapy in 2005 from Coventry University and her doctorate in education in 2013 at UEA researching students’ experiences of learning neurological physiotherapy. Her interests lie in physiotherapy teaching and learning, promoting person-centred practice with self-management and sustainability, and physiotherapy graduate employability. Kelly intends to use these interests and skills developed through her university teaching innovation, administration, quality assurance, leadership and management roles, to learn from and represent the diversity of the CSP membership.

Sylvia Wojciechowski

Sylvia is currently working as the lead advanced practice physiotherapist and orthopaedic strategy lead at Frimley Health Foundation Trust. She is also the programme lead for MSK across Frimley Health and Care system.

An injury in her early 20s meant Sylvia needed a change of direction and so she chose physiotherapy, a decision which she has never regretted. Sylvia has worked in both the private sector and the NHS and has over 18 years’ experience as an MSK advanced practice physiotherapist.

Sylvia’s current leadership role allows her to work across boundaries with a wide range of stakeholders proudly promoting the value of our profession as well as other AHP roles and is passionate about working collaboratively for the benefit of all.

^{All photographs (c) Nathan Clarke 2018}

Meeting dates

7 December 2023
1 February 2024
28 March 2024
23 May 2024
11 July 2024
3 October 2024
5 December 2024

Key messages from Council meetings

Role and remit of CSP Council

Council committees

Find out more about Council's four strategic committees:

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